If Your Mother’s Day Present Is Shitty, Your Wife Will Cheat On You

According to the New York Post, the day after Mother’s Day is the “second most popular day” women will want to cheat on you —or at the very least will think about it all day long while sipping a glass of Franzia— if they feel like they’re feeling neglected or taken for granted.

Of course, this is second only to the number one cheating day: Valentine’s Day (except on Valentine’s Day women think about cheating while eating a Betty Crocker Warm Delights brownie, but the day is pretty much the same in every other way).

The post sites a 52-year-old New Jersey woman named Marie who went “on the prowl” after her husband neglected to give her a Mother’s Day present:

“I’m not asking for roses and being showered with gifts,” Marie told the newspaper. “But how about bringing me a cup of coffee? You’d at least like your husband to acknowledge that you’re the mother of his children.”

That was when Marie hit the online dating sites – especially one for unfulfilled married women looking for a good time. She didn’t have too much trouble finding one, and now she’s having an affair with a man she calls “my lover.”

And there are statistics to back up Marie’s experience: A massive married-dating website called Ashley Madison said that it set a record the day after Mother’s Day 2010. A total of 31,427 women signed up. That’s a lot of angry, unfulfilled women.

Perhaps the most questionable part of this article is that, according to Yahoo, the “lesson here” is to “give moms something on Mother’s Day”.

Really? That’s it?

The “lesson” has nothing to do with the possibility that these relationships were already fragile to begin with and simply reached a breaking point due to some sort of straw that broke the camel’s back situation that just happened to fall on Mother’s Day?

Of course you should appreciate your partner (and your loved ones in general) as often as possible and in any way you see fit, but saying that the “lesson” found in this article is that if you don’t pick up a box of miscellaneous chocolates on your way home from work she’s definitely going to cheat on you and it’ll be your own damn fault, sends a dangerous message to both parties.

Regardless of gender, the idea that fidelity and commitment are based around the giving and receiving of “flowers, jewelry, chocolates, or an expensive card” (see: Yahoo’s ‘Keep Her From Cheating’ Gift Guide!) perpetuates the antiquated notion that love is simply bought and sold.

I thought such a notion was kind of laughed at —as opposed to silently nodded in agreement with— at this point.